One
Gemma
“Just one more quick stop.”
In the back seat my eleven-year-old daughter, Aris, groans so theatrically you’d think she’s auditioning for Broadway. “It’s taking forever.”
Temper flares in my chest but that never helps. I summon my warmest, yet motherly tone. “Be patient honey, please. We’ll get there and you girls will have a great time. You know I’m meeting with the recruiter right after I drop you off. I need to—”
“You need to make a good first impression,” Aris says, annoyed. “I know.”
I feel for her, I do. In the last hour I’ve toted her to the dry cleaners, the pharmacy, the print shop, and now the car wash, before I can drop her off at Becky’s house and get to my meeting—or is it technically an interview?—with the recruiter. It’s bad enough I drive this clunker, at least it can be clean when I pull up to the six-story office building in downtown Stanbery.
Yes…I need to make a good impression. Or at least the best impression I’m capable of.
I need this job.
Case in point: When I swipe my debit card to pay for the wash, the word “DECLINED” blinks back at me in all-caps. I glare sidelong at my grubby car parked out front, and let go of a sigh.
“Do you have another card?” the cashier asks, valiantly.
“No, I don’t.”
“Darn,” she says. “Well hey, I think today’s when the Fort Montevallo SWAT team is washing cars over at the humane society.”
Hope brightens in my chest. “Free washes?”
The woman shrugs. “Probably. I assume they’re accepting donations for the animals.”
I don’t even have six dollars in my checking account. I do feel bad for the animals that need homes. But I am one severance check away from losing my home.
I wave goodbye. “Thanks for the tip.” Which is exactly what those SWAT guys won’t be saying, when they’re finished washing my car.
I am a horrible, terrible person.
I feel even worse when we actually get there. There’s a digital display at the front of the building, flickering photo after photo of the sheltered dogs and cats.
I hate that I have no intention of paying for this. There’s also a hand-drawn sign out front that does advertise the washes as free. My heart clenches, and I make a vow to myself to come back here and leave a donation so generous it hurts…right after I land a job.
I pull into a spot. One of the SWAT officers walks right over, taps on the driver’s side window. I roll it down.
“You can go on inside,” he says, “take a look at the animals that are ready for adoption.”
“Oh, can we, can we?!” Aris squeals. Seriously, who needs a puppy when I have a tween? “Pleeease.”
Oof. If we go inside she’ll never stop talking about all the adorable doggos and kittens that need homes. I can’t look those animals in the face and steal from them. No sir, no ma’am.
And I’m not in a hurry, but I’m a single mom; I’m kind of always in a hurry. “Can we just…wait here…inside the car?” I stammer pathetically.
He gives me a look. “Uh. Sure…”
I roll up the window. Aris pouts.
The next thing I know there are seven hunky guys convening on the car and hosing it down. Then they lather it up, all hardness and vigor and wide, roguish smirks.
Did I mention they’re shirtless?
“Whoa,” Aris pipes up from the back seat. All evidence of her prior sulking routine, gone. “These guys are hot!”
She said what? Now I really feel like a terrible…like a horrible…
Wait, is that guy staring at me? He is quite a specimen, tall, tan, and ripped to shreds. He flicks his wheat-colored hair off his brow, and his gray-blue eyes find mine. A heated flutter stirs low in my belly, and I jerk my eyes away but they keep straying back again, pulled by his intensity and charm, drawn to him as if by magnetic force…or maybe it’s sorcery? He sends me a warm smile, and my heart flips out.
Good grief, but he’s handsome!
“So these dudes are all…cops?” Aris says, too interestedly.
“SWAT,” I answer. “Special weapons and…” And then I lose myself all over again, watching the same man’s unhurried movements. He has muscles twinging in places I didn’t even know could be that ruggedly hewn.
I wet my lips with my tongue. His gaze flirts down at me, then away, just enough to make me aware I’ve been caught staring.
“Wow, Mom. That one guy is totally checking you out.”
“He is not,” I say, feebly. Is he checking me out? No, no. I am checking him out.
“He’s been cleaning that window for like a full minute,” Aris giggles under her breath. My cheeks flare when he glances at me again. And I’m not at all disappointed to see a hint of red creep up his own neck as our gazes lock.
Nervously, I yank my eyes away. Surrounding the car on all sides is muscle, and skin, and soap. I swallow dryly.
“These are highly trained, respectable men in uniform,” I school Aris. My own rebellious stare is met with a wall of chiseled abs and broad, sinewy chest flexing outside my window. “Well,” I add. “Usually in uniform.”
“Do you think it’s insulting, the fact they have to strip down almost naked for this?” asks my eleven-going-on-twenty-five-year-old. Her eyebrows knit together. She’s not lusting, she’s ruminating. Right?
Gawd.
“They don’t look insulted…I mean if you think about it the whole point of a fundraiser is to raise as much money as you can using the goods God gave you,” I say inappropriately. “I think it would be odd not to have them do this with their shirts off.”
“Mom…ew. I’m going to pretend you did not just say that.”
“Oh, you can ogle, but I can’t?” I tease.
“Exactly.” She smiles, all smug. I toss her a parental look, but it falls off quickly and becomes a grin. In spite of ourselves we both bust out into girlish giggles.
Suds sluice down the car windows as one of the men hoses it down. They’re all attractive, in that rough-and-tumble way that tends to clean up so, so very nice.
Before we go I flick my eyes upward again, at the one man whose lingering stare could make me boneless. Sure enough, he’s looking right at me. This time I don’t look away.
Instead I look at him right back, straight on, and for a moment his gaze, genial, and soulful, and heated, holds me.
“Mom,” says Aris acutely, snapping back my awareness. I shake my head.
“Thank you!” And then with a little shy wave to express that I’m grateful, and sorry, I start driving off.
“Mom—weren’t you supposed to leave a tip?”
“Donations, honey.”
“Okay…” Aris says with too many a’s at the end. “Aren’t you supposed to leave a donation?”
“Yes,” I answer, shame-faced. “Yes, generally when one goes to a charity car wash and proceeds to get their car washed, one gives a donation as…thanks, and support.” At a stoplight I let my forehead rest down on the steering wheel.
Deep breaths, Gemma. You’re not a bad person. You’re certainly not a bad mom. You’re doing the best that you can. I stay like this until the vehicle behind me honks so loudly and impatiently that my heart zips up my throat.